Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1)

by Susan Vaughan

  “He took me to some dark place. I don’t know where. An alley or warehouse. First he used his fists. Then he pulled out a switchblade. I knew what was coming. I remember the blade clicking into place.”

  She stared into the heater’s small flame, as if it kept her warm and steady during the narration. A veneer of calm covered her, a fragile shield of courage. She continued, but with increasing tension in her voice as unseen blows pummeled her. Cole longed to wrap his arms around her, but feared his touch might snap her control.

  “The pain was unbearable. Blow after blow on my head, my neck, my ribs. His fists. The knife. I didn’t know which. I screamed and screamed. No one came. I was dizzy and nauseous. And then I lost consciousness.” Her shoulders stiffened as if prepared for another strike.

  “Drink your tea.” He forced the words past his constricted throat. His gut seethed. He lifted the cup to her lips. His hands shook almost as much as hers. “Its warmth will help.”

  As she swallowed the mint-scented drink, her shoulders relaxed. “When I opened my eyes again, the darkness … like the inside of a tomb. I couldn’t tell where. I was so weak, but I could feel and smell. Humidity. Stale beer, blood, vomit — maybe mine — and the ammonia sting of animal droppings. I gagged at the stench.” Tears flowed, but she didn’t seem to know she was crying.

  Cole’s chest ached with the need to take her pain into himself. Unable to resist, he circled her hips with his arms, holding on as her anchor. Telling the story, getting it out, might stave off the nightmares that haunted her.

  “I felt like a hollow shell. So much blood lost. I lay there, bleeding away, drifting. Dying. Then I heard a noise beside me. A chittering sound, like a bird. But not a bird. Something plucked at my sleeve. It plucked again. I felt pricks on my arm. Like needles in a cluster.”

  His eyes narrowed. A chill prickled his spine. He knew what was coming. He tightened his grip on her.

  “I … reached out and touched — a rat.” Laura’s voice was cold as a January moon. “It was standing on my arm, licking at the blood soaking my blouse sleeve.”

  A shudder racked her slim body. Shivering like a hypothermia victim, she swayed, boneless, and nearly fell from the stool. But still the words came in that artificial monotone.

  His insides roiling, he listened as she related the shock of touching the sinuous, furry body. Of realizing what the creature was doing. What it wanted.

  “Oh God, oh God, I panicked. Fear and revulsion of that rat threw me to action. I flailed out with both arms.”

  “What happened?”

  “The thing ran away. And then I scooted as far away from where it had been as I could. I came up against a curved wall. Nausea choked me. I lay there awhile to gather strength. I don’t know how long. I panicked again when I realized the foul creature might return. What if I was too weak to fight it off? What if more followed the smell of blood?”

  Her knuckles shone white from her death grip on the tea mug. He kept his arms around her.

  After a deep breath, she continued. “I knew if I stayed put, no one would find me. Panic would do me no good. I would not let Markos win. I was weak. I’d lost a lot of blood, but I was alive. And I did not want to die in that box.

  “I realized was locked in a car trunk. An old car, without a trunk safety latch. If a rat could find an escape, so could I. I remembered reading somewhere about the seat back being a weak spot.” She described how she rolled to it and found where the rats had gnawed a hole. Moving doubled, trebled the pain, as if her attacker was thrashing and slashing at her again.

  If only he could protect her from the agony of remembering. His throat tightened at her bravery and willpower.

  “Pain was good. Pain kept me alert. I scooted around so I braced my feet against the seat divider. I had no strength to kick, so my leather pumps couldn’t budge the hard surface. I kept kicking until exhaustion put me to sleep. When I woke up — no telling how much later — I kicked again. And again. And again. Until finally the seat back collapsed and I saw light. And a hole big enough for a gang of rats.”

  She gave a bitter laugh, a laugh dragged up from the roots of her tortured soul. “Crawling through that hole meant squeezing and twisting slowly. It might have been hours later that I flopped out onto the ground.”

  “The report said you were in a junkyard. In a car slated to be crushed the next morning.” Nearly as wrung out as she, he drew in a ragged breath, took the empty mug from her stiff and cold hands and covered them with his. “You got out just in time.”

  “I found the night watchman. He helped me and called the police. I’ll never forget the poor man’s shocked expression when I shuffled toward his trailer. He thought I wore a red shirt. It was my best cream silk blouse, but … the blood. I…” Her voice scraped, as if she’d swallowed nails.

  “Hush, Laura, everything’s all right. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” He kneaded at the knots in her hunched shoulders. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. Most people would have given up and died. But not you. You turned tragedy into triumph.”

  And then her nearness, her haunted eyes, live wires shooting sparks between them, robbed him of thought. He sieved his fingers through the hair at her nape. Twining his fingers in it, he traced her skin from ear to chin with his thumb before he released the curls. He touched his mouth to the salt trails on her cheeks and kissed away the remaining tears.

  Each stroke zapped his nerve endings. He didn’t want to feel this voltage. He should keep their relationship professional. But need sapped his will.

  “But I…” Her words died as the spark in her eyes heated to flame.

  Caught in each other’s stare, neither moved.

  Laura let her gaze roam over his heated face and settle on his lips. His complete focus on her, his strength and support kept her from falling into an abyss while she relived that harrowing experience. She felt cleansed of the horror, its talons withdrawn and the pain soothed after holding it all in for so long. And now she had another need.

  Cole.

  He tugged on her hair, tilting her head back as he lowered his mouth. “I can’t keep away.”

  Offering no gentle, exploratory kiss, his mouth plundered and devoured hers. While one hand cupped the back of her head, the other bracketed her body.

  Her knees dissolved, and she could only clutch at his shirtfront as she slid from the stool onto his lap. His heart raced beneath her fingers. She fitted her lips to his, claiming his mouth as he did hers. He tasted of heat and hunger and something darker.

  As the kiss deepened, she forgot everything — her fears about the past, about the present. Everything but the intoxication that reached deep into her soul. With no other man had she ever felt this intense rush of agony and pleasure, this piercing need, this spiraling fall, as if she’d tumbled off a precipice only to soar. No other man. Only Cole.

  Too late. She’d fallen over that precipice into love with him.

  If she’d ever stopped loving him.

  Her heart stumbled and slammed against her ribs. The knowledge that loving him would bring only more pain to both of them suffocated her until she could barely breathe.

  But it was Cole who ended the kiss. “Damn, I didn’t mean to take advantage of you.” Lifting his arms, he let her slide away. Desire dilated his pupils so there was almost no blue. “Wanting you is a fire in my blood. And you want me just as bad. You can’t deny it.”

  Fearful her emotions played across her face, she could only shake her head as she pushed to her feet.

  At her bedroom door, she turned. “No, Cole, I can’t deny it, but I can refuse. What we had is over. It’s too late now. Nothing can change what happened. We’re not the same people.”

  “Of course we’re not the same. No one is. But—”

  “We have no future together. Our lives are different.”

  When more questions furrowed his brow, she knew the time had come.

  She owed him th
e truth, the simple part.

  Chapter 13

  SHE DREW A deep breath, steeling herself. “You need to know something I’ve kept from you. I didn’t tell you before because I wasn’t prepared. Because it was, is painful. We were still half angry with each other, and—”

  “It’s okay.” Cole was on his feet, arms at his sides, his hands flexing. The wary wolf. “Tell me.”

  Aching at the pain on his face, she held the doorknob for support. Her throat was so dry she could barely speak. “After our weekend together, I was pregnant.”

  He reeled backward as though she’d slugged him. His tanned cheeks paled. “Pregnant. A baby. But…”

  Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked furiously, but the dam burst. “I had an … a miscarriage.”

  “Oh God. What a hell of a thing.” Scrubbing his knuckles across a day’s growth of dark stubble, he started toward her, but stopped two steps away. Distrustful, or did he perceive her invisible barrier? “Damn, there were a couple of times that weekend we didn’t use protection. I’m sorry. I should’ve known better.”

  She swiped the tears off her cheeks and gulped down the lump in her throat. She closed her mind to the images of the lost baby and others that could never be. A boy with Cole’s eyes. A little girl with his dark curly hair.

  Her chest ached with tension and regrets. She resisted running into his arms. “We both should have. I admit I blamed you at first. I hated you for the pregnancy, for deserting me, for everything. But later I realized you were the easy target. I was responsible too.”

  “I have to know. Can you tell me how it happened, the miscarriage?” His voice throbbed with anguish.

  “Not now.” Every cell in her body slumped with exhaustion. She’d tell him about the accident, but another time.

  “Aw, hell, of course. I already put you through the wringer.” Clearly, desperation to know more tensed his whole body. “Enough for one night. I can wait.”

  Nodding, she escaped to her bedroom.

  ***

  Crows cawing reveille, dragging Cole from a fitful sleep. He couldn’t blame the damn couch. Half the cushions sagged nearly to the floor with his weight, and springs in the rest bayoneted his back. Lumpy as it was, he’d sacked out on worse. Not discomfort but awareness of the woman sleeping in the bedroom had kept him on edge.

  He blinked at the window, hazy with sunlight seeping through the fog. Raking a hand through his hair, he headed to the shower. The hot water pelted his head like a waterfall, but couldn’t wash away last night’s images. She’d opened her soul to him by relating her painful escape from death. Afterward she clung to him, and they kissed until both were aflame.

  And then he pushed her into revealing what she kept secret for so long. A baby. His heart twisted. Had he slipped up on purpose? Had he wanted her so much that he risked a pregnancy to bind her to him? What a farce. As if her parents would’ve allowed it.

  He tried to picture her round with his baby growing in her belly. Turning his gritty face up to the shower spray, he allowed a small grin before the rest of what she’d said flattened it. Miscarriage.

  Was it a boy or a girl? What caused the loss? So many questions peppered his brain that he felt as wired as if he were dodging an AK-47 volley from an Afghan cave.

  Laura had been right to call a halt last night. They had more hurdles before the path smoothed out. But he wished she’d at least let him hold her and comfort her — and himself, if he was honest — when she was so clearly in pain. She suffered more over the years than he’d imagined.

  Yet comforting would’ve for sure led to more. He kept imagining lying with her in that double bed. The damn iron frame creaked with her every toss and turn. Ten times he threw back the covers to go to her, and ten times he called himself a fool.

  The scent of her shampoo perfumed the bathroom. Spitting out creative expletives in two languages, he dialed the shower all the way to cold.

  ***

  As soon as the rushing shower masked other sounds, Laura stepped into her swimsuit, shorts and secondhand boat shoes. She tiptoed from her bedroom and out the door.

  The rising sun was dispersing most of the fog. Over the grass, only cotton balls of mist drifted here and there, but an amorphous swirl curtained the cooler lake surface. From the far shore floated a loon’s eerie tremolo.

  Yes, her solo outing was risky, but she didn’t care. She headed for the boat shed. Having Cole under her roof — holding her when she was vulnerable enough to succumb, tempting her — held far more risk. Acknowledgment of her doomed love for him added exquisite torture to an already untenable situation.

  Revealing the pregnancy and miscarriage would inevitably lead to more confessions. Including one that she might never be ready to broach.

  His constant hovering was only dragging out the ordeal. If evading his presence invited the killer to try something, so be it. She desperately needed a break from being cooped up with him in that tiny cabin.

  It was more likely the hour was so early that no self-respecting hit man would be up and about. No one knew she was out here, and the fog would conceal her. The two DARK men had to be around somewhere, but she saw only Burt mowing by the tennis courts.

  The air was cool against her bare arms, and the smudge of the smoldering beach bonfire hung in the still air. She hurried along the path. There. She was out in the open. A target. Her pulse pounded in her ears and her stomach clenched. Her steps hurried as she neared the docks. Shrouded with fog, they isolated her from view. She’d be fine.

  The little regatta between Passabec Lake and East Pond wouldn’t begin until nearly eleven or when the breeze came up. She didn’t need to prepare so early, but aside from everything else, setting up the markers with no one on the calm waters appealed to her.

  The fog curtain muffled the only other sounds, Burt’s mower and some too cheerful songbirds. She should appreciate the solitude. Something she’d grown accustomed to during the past months, but had little of the last few days.

  After sliding aside the door to the shed, she hesitated in the opening. Shadows lurked in every corner. She was as skittish as a child seeing bogeymen under the bed. Shaking her head, she marched in to get the marker buoys. Afterward she climbed into her small outboard skiff. The low and steady putt-putt of the motor reassured her as she steered to a point fifty yards out. The sun’s rays were shredding the fog, parting the curtain as if to aid her in placing the buoys. No need to be afraid. No harm could come to her with not even a fisherman on the lake. She idled the motor as she placed the orange marker, one of three tethered to a weight that rested on the lake’s muddy bottom.

  Was the fog thick enough to shield her from a sniper? In movies, a telltale glint warned of a rifle. She saw nothing out of the ordinary on shore, but the fine hairs on her nape lifted. She hunched lower in the boat.

  To give the young sailors a challenge, she motored farther down the lake, nearly half a mile, to place the next buoy in the triangle-shaped course. She’d neglected to wear a life vest, something she drilled into her students. Rummaging beneath the seat rewarded her with only a paint-smeared hand.

  Wet paint? That was odd, and now her feet were wet. A few inches of water sloshed over her shoes. Oh great, what now? She reached farther beneath the seat.

  No bailer. Not even the sponge she normally kept there.

  She bailed with her hands, but water poured through a hole in the bottom faster than she could scoop. Water fountained in like a bathtub filling from the bottom. Hand bailing was futile. Her mouth tightened.

  Stupid, stupid. No life vest. No bailer.

  She was a strong swimmer, but through the wispy fog the shore loomed light-years from the middle of the lake. No help in sight, and she had one more marker buoy to set. It bobbed to the surface an unreachable distance away. At the absurdity of attempting to place it now, she couldn’t stop a giggle.

  With a loud glug, the outboard motor pulled the stern down. The boat
followed, and she splashed into the water. Comprehension flooded her. Her stomach wound into a tight knot. Someone had done this to her, with deliberation and premeditation.

  And she knew how.

  The water felt warmer than the morning air, but it would soon chill her. She had to get out. She lunged for the orange marker that had plopped out along with her. It would help support her until she could decide which way to swim.

  Something stopped her short of the buoy. A steel grip held her right ankle fast. A torrent of adrenaline coursed through her. Her heart hammered.

  No! She’d beaten death twice before. She fought too hard to let drowning be her fate. She kicked and splashed. No give. She yelled for help, but hadn’t enough breath for volume.

  Adrenaline fueling her muscles, she jackknifed down to look. Her captor wasn’t a hired killer. It wasn’t even human. The painter, the mooring line, was looped around her ankle. Eel grass and the frayed line had interwoven. The tangle imprisoned her as surely as a leg iron.

  With the boat as anchor, she was a balloon on a string.

  Blood roared in her ears. She peeled off her water-filled boat shoes, then heaved and pulled to free herself. The grip refused to yield.

  She was going under with the sinking boat.

  Chapter 14

  AS SOON AS Cole left the bathroom, yawning, he strode into the kitchen. No coffee. No Laura. Not even in the bedroom.

  Where the hell was she? Did the woman have no care for her safety? He knew better. What was she up to then? As he stomped into his Tevas, he peered out the front window.

  Damn fog. And the trees. He could see nothing. He fitted his 9mm into his inside-the-waistband holster — easier to get to than an ankle holster — and pulled on a fresh T-shirt, leaving it out to cover the weapon. He hit the door.

  Like him, she’d thrashed through the night. And this morning probably needed to get out or to get away from him. Probably went to the boat shed. The other officers were out there, but their job was to spot the killer.